Rebecca Hanson
Assistant Professor
- Gainesville FL UNITED STATES
- Center for Latin American Studies
Rebecca Hanson conducts research on participatory democratic neighborhood experiments and police militarization.
Contact More Open optionsBiography
Rebecca Hanson is an assistant professor for the Center for Latin American Studies. She has conducted research on participatory democratic neighborhood experiments, socialist ideology in Venezuela, civilian police reform, police militarization and its impacts on organized crime, and the effects of police-community meetings on citizen attitudes and police behavior. Rebecca's other area of research analyzes sexual harassment and ethnographic fieldwork.
Areas of Expertise
Media Appearances
This Is Not the Right Way to Curb Immigration
The New York Times print
2025-04-04
The Trump administration last month deported scores of Venezuelan men to El Salvador, sending them to a maximum-security prison for gang members. The administration claimed that most of the men were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, a group that, according to the executive order decreeing the deportations, is “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.”
The murder rate in Venezuela has fallen — but both Trump and Maduro are wrong about why
The Conversation online
2025-02-24
The case of Venezuela is not one of government control over criminal groups. Rather, it is characterized by an unstable and volatile relationship between the government and multiple competing armed actors, including gangs and the police.
Bouncy Castles and Grenades: Gangs Erode Maduro’s Grip on Caracas
The New York Times online
2021-05-30
“Maduro is often seen as a traditional strongman controlling every aspect of Venezuelans’ lives,” said Rebecca Hanson, a sociologist at the University of Florida who studies violence in Venezuela. “In reality, the state has become very fragmented, very chaotic and in many areas very weak.”
What the US Sanctions Against Venezuela Have Wrought
Jacobin online
2019-09-22
In early August, the Trump administration ramped up economic sanctions on Venezuela, freezing foreign assets and blocking companies from doing business with the Maduro government. As was to be expected, the executive order was accompanied by grandstanding by members of the Trump administration who argued that the move would “accelerate a peaceful democratic transition.”
Venezuela at Another Crossroads
NACLA online
2019-01-24
Thousands of protestors in the streets. A self-proclaimed president. An uncertain political future. Venezuela has been here before.
Behind the scenes of Venezuela’s deadly prison fire
UF News online
2018-04-09
A UF sociologist suggest that the story behind a fire that filled 66 inmates at a Venezuelan jail in March and resulted in a deadly riot may be more complex – and scarier – than what news stories portrayed.
Behind the scenes of Venezuela’s deadly prison fire
The Conversation online
2018-04-04
A fire killed scores of inmates after a riot in a Venezuelan jail in the early morning hours of March 28. Sixty-six detainees died in the flames, as did two female visitors.
Social
Articles
Preaching to the Choir: A Problem of Participatory Interventions
The Journal of PoliticsHanson, et al.
2025-03-07
Scholars and policymakers alike have endorsed dialogue as a remedy for the global crisis in police–community relations. But the community members who choose to engage in dialogue with police officers, we find, are those who trust the police to begin with.
Shoutings, Scoldings, Gossip, and Whispers: Mothers’ Responses to Armed Actors and Militarization in Two Caracas Barrios
Latin American Research ReviewZubillaga & Hanson
2023-12-11
We compare the experiences of women in two poor and working-class neighborhoods in Caracas. Through this comparative ethnographic project, we aim to show how, in the midst of state-sponsored depredation and with an overwhelming presence of guns in their lives, women use their cultural roles as mothers to perform everyday forms of resistance vis-à-vis the different armed actors that impose their presence in the barrios.
From carceral punitivism to systematic killing: The necropolitics of policing in post-Chávez Venezuela
Violence: An International JournalRebecca Hanson, Veronica Zubillaga
2021-05-12
Since 2017, state security forces in Venezuela have been responsible for over 20% of violent deaths in the country. This represents an unprecedented period of state repression in the country’s history that demands examination. In this article, we argue that in order to understand the recent increase in violent deaths in Venezuela during the post-Chávez period, we must place at the center of our analysis the discourses and practices of an extremely privileged actor, the state, in the context of the collapse of oil prices.
Acosadas en terreno: El género, la raza, la nación y la construcción del conocimiento etnográfico
Polis. Revista LatinoamericanaRebecca Hanson
2021-03-18
Sexual harassment and sexualization are common experiences for women researchers as they conduct fieldwork. Yet, these topics are rarely mentioned in books and classes on qualitative methods. This article, based on interviews with qualitative researchers (47 women and nine men) from the North American academy, criticizes the silence around sexual harassment in the field.
Popularity Contests Deepen Venezuela’s Deadly Stalemate
NACLA Report on the AmericasRebecca Hanson
2021-03-08
Perhaps the most significant role played by the 2016-2021 National Assembly was providing a platform for Juan Guaidó to rise from obscurity to the international spotlight. Guaidó, a National Assembly representative and relatively unknown political figure from the Voluntad Popular party, became president of the legislative body at the beginning of 2019.
Perceptions of Police Corruption in Medellín
CAFEric Arias, et al.
2019-11-06
Conventional wisdom holds that police corruption is a scourge across Latin America, undermining citizens’ trust in and collaboration with police officers. We find that this does not describe police-community relations in Medellín. Using original survey data in Medellín, we find perceptions of police corruption are only weakly correlated with perceptions of police quality along other dimensions.
